Corporate high-flyer turned international fugitive and Canberra prison inmate Peter Daniels Clarke II appears set to have his lengthy jail sentence cut.
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The office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions this morning conceded it was open for three appeal court judges to find a retired judge erred in jailing Clark for 12 years, with a non-parole period of seven.
ACT Court of Appeal judges Hilary Penfold, John Burns and Bruce Lander today reserved their decision in the sentence appeal.
But Justice Penfold said given the material put before the appellant court, and the concessions made by the Crown, they would have to resentence the fraudster.
The case hinges on the way the now-retired Justice John Gallop constructed the sentence handed down in April.
Clarke pleaded guilty in January 2000 to five charges relating to the misuse of client funds.
The Harvard drop-out rorted more than $4 millon from clients of the Burns Philp Trustee Company [Canberra] in early 1990s.
On the day before he was due to be sentenced by Justice Gallop, then on the cusp of his statutory retirement age of 70, Clarke vanished.
He resurfaced in Europe 10 years later, by which time he was living in a London flat, subsisting on social welfare benefits and battling prescription drug addiction.
Gallop was brought back out of retirement to finish the job he started, and the veteran judge sentenced Clarke to three years on each of the charges, one three-year period running at the same time as another for a total term of 12 years.
Counsel for the prosecution, Sydney silk Peter Hastings QC, conceded the court could find Justice Gallop should have paid more consideration to the individual culpability of each offence.
Clarke's barrister, Shane Gill, argued the sentencing judge should have distinguished between crimes where the money wound up in his client's pocket and those where the embezzled funds went towards propping up the ailing business.
The court heard Justice Gallop also should have given more though to overlapping some of the sentences upon others to reflect linked criminality.
Clarke's partner-in-crime, Richard James Drummond, was given weekend jail and a suspended sentence in October 1998 for his role in the rort.
Mr Gill submitted while Drummond's conduct was less serious than Clarke's, his client's sentence should nevertheless be reduced to reflect parity with his co-offender.
The Crown suggested the total sentence should be somewhere between the 12-years imposed by Justice Gallop and five years at the very minimum.
Clarke, a dual United States and British citizen, is expected to be deported when he is eventually released.
The current sentence would leave Clarke eligible for parole in April 2016, taking into account time served.